About this blog

My name is Bill Hirt and I'm a candidate to be a Representative from the 48th district in the Washington State legislature. My candidacy stems from concern the legislature is not properly overseeing the WSDOT and Sound Transit East Link light rail program. I believe East Link will be a disaster for the entire eastside. ST will spend 5-6 billion on a transportation project that will increase, not decrease cross-lake congestion, violates federal environmental laws, devastates a beautiful part of residential Bellevue, creates havoc in Bellevue's central business district, and does absolutely nothing to alleviate congestion on 1-90 and 405. The only winners with East Link are the Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington and their labor unions.

This blog is an attempt to get more public awareness of these concerns. Many of the articles are from 3 years of failed efforts to persuade the Bellevue City Council, King County Council, east side legislators, media, and other organizations to stop this debacle. I have no illusions about being elected. My hope is voters from throughout the east side will read of my candidacy and visit this Web site. If they don't find them persuasive I know at least I tried.

Monday, August 17, 2015

I-90 Bridge Design Debacle

The story in the
Aug 16th Times about the need for an additional $20M to complete the I-90
Bridge design for East Link is just the latest example of Sound Transit, Sound
Transit Board, and WSDOT monumental incompetence. It began more than 15 years ago when the selected light rail
rather than two- way bus only (BRT) on the bridge center roadway for cross-lake
transit.

East Link was the
first attempt to put light rail on a “floating bridge”.The problem was assuring the “expansion
joints” connecting the floating and fixed portions of the bridge could
withstand the loads from light rail trains.In Sept
2005, the WSDOT thought they'd demonstrated the I-90 Bridge/light rail
compatibility using flat bed trucks to simulate light rail cars. They claimed the “results of the test confirmed previous
findings that the bridge can be structurally retrofitted to carry the loads
associated with the light rail system under consideration, in addition to
general traffic on the roadway”.

Apparently the
Washington Sate Legislature Joint Transportation Committee (JTC) was not
satisfied because they commissioned an independent review team (IRT) to
evaluate the bridge design with light rail. The results of the IRT study included
the following:

Several issues could affect project cost estimates and
schedules and therefore should be resolved at the earliest states of the
project design. One issue deals with a required design element (LRT
Expansion Joint Tract Bridge) has no history of use on floating bridges, and
therefore requires careful study and testing in the early stages of the
project.

Since many of the issues require additional study,
analysis, and design the IRT recommends that an independent review or peer
review panel be organized to provide oversight throughout the LRT East Link
design process.

In response to
these IRT concerns ST, three months later in the Dec 2008 DEIS included the
following statement regarding floating bridge/light rail compatibility:

The IRT concluded that all issues
identified as potentially affecting feasibility can be addressed.

The U.S. Department
of Transportation Federal Highway Administration had similar concerns in a February
2009 letter responding to Sound Transits 2008 DEIS for the East Link Project
included the following:

“We do not agree that there has been
enough work done to justify the conclusion that it is feasible to design a
light rail track system to accommodate the movements of the I-90 floating
bridge” and “there is additional work to be done to determine if it is feasible
to design an expansion joint to accommodate light rail”.

Yet, two years
later the ST 2011 FEIS included the same confident response as the 2008 DEIS.

Finally in 2012, four
years after the IRT recommended “careful study and testing in the early stages
of the project” ST signed a $28M (later $36M) contract with Parsons
Brinckerhoff (PB) to finish the design.It was presumably their expansion joint (tract bridge in
article) design ST demonstrated at the Transportation Technology Center in
Pueblo, Colo. The tests, conducted during the summer and fall of 2013,
were initially reported to be a success with claims their design passed with
“flying colors”.

Later, in a Jan 16th 2015
meeting with Bellevue City Council, ST claimed that, while they had not
completed the bridge design, they still didn’t think it was a major
problem.Even the Aug 16th story
quoted a WSDOT official telling the board:

“we have not
indentified any fatal flaws that would prevent light rail from being installed
on this corridor”

The fact that ST
has spent $38M on a design that initially passed with “flying colors” but
subsequently “crashed” suggests the problems are, “if not “fatal”, surely “serious”.One wonders why ST is so
confident another $20M will fix the problem.Also since the WSDOT has been involved in this, so far. failed
design process from the start, why are they given responsibility for approving the
final design?

What is truly
absurd is the Sound Transit Boards “disappointment” about the recent bridge
design problems.They should have
been aware of them 7 years ago.Instead of responding to the IRT and FHWA concerns they allowed ST to
spend hundreds of millions promoting light rail on the east side with detailed depictions of light rail tracks and stations on the eastside without confirming they could put light
rail on the bridge.Since ST is
closing down the center roadway in 2017, it’s a little late to say “preparation
now reduces risk down the road”.

Of course the real
debacle is the fact that none of the three seem to recognize the insanity of
spending $3.7B for East Link’s one light rail train every 8 minutes.Particularly since doing so will devastate
the route into Bellevue and gridlock I-90 Bridge outer roadway.

About Me

My last elective position was class president for 25 “class of ’57” seniors in Armstrong, Iowa. I received an MS in engineering at ISU, worked at Boeing for 36 years before retiring in 1998. My wife and I moved into our current home in Bellevue in 1967 where we raised two daughters. Three years of unsuccessful attempts to persuade BCC to block EL are available on “extended session” meeting minutes. Copies of many were sent to all the media outlets, legislators, and others to no avail. I’m hoping this Web site will convince east side residents to query their own legislators.